The Robin Friedman Chair in Computational Biology

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While we're on the theme of portraits, here's Robin, who defended his thesis this month.  His lab decided to "endow" a fancy desk chair for subsequent members of the lab to sit in, i.e. the "Robin Friedman Chair of Computational Biology."

This series of portraits marks the first time I used the fancy Canon 430 EX II.  Up to now, the loyal reader will notice that I have been struggling with these modified Sunpak auto-266D flashes, which are not really consistent flash-to-flash, and certainly do not interface with the camera for metering purposes.  I have to say, after two years of fiddling with a linear potentiometer to adjust a non-linear system, i.e. the Sunpak flash exposure determination system, I find ETTL to be amazing.  Dial in the background exposure, dial in the flash exposure, and voila, shot complete.

Also critical is the swivel head - all of these shots could not have been taken by the Sunpaks because they can only point forward or straight up.  This capability is at once more useful than I thought and yet less useful.  In terms of more useful, all of these shots were taken by orienting the flash almost directly behind me and bouncing off a conveniently placed whiteboard.  Also, the flash itself is more powerful than the Sunpaks, so to some degree I can mitigate the old situation where the full discharge is still insufficient to light the scene.  However, it turns out that there still aren't that many things to bounce off, so despite the increased power and flexibility, the "look" of the shots are not that different.  The major improvement in these situations is that the orbit shadows across the eyes are reduced, since I am now aiming the flash head over my shoulder (instead of straight up).

More on the 430 EX II as I try to figure out its nuances.